


The Feeling of Today

by nisakomi



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-04 23:42:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5352791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nisakomi/pseuds/nisakomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A period in his life that Yixing never wants to forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Feeling of Today

If there is a period of time in his life that Yixing would forget if he could, it’s his trainee days. In his memories they’ve become synonymous with unhappiness, and his dreams involving the past are always more like nightmares. They’re several years of darkness, quite literally, because in his mind, those moments when he was passed out in the dance studio are tinted by black.  
  
It’s a closed book. The thing about that era was that most of his unhappiness was tied directly to feelings.  
  
Exhaustion. Waking up in the morning after only four or five hours of sleep and feeling soreness in his arms and legs, butt and abs, his feet and even his joints and waist and back. He can’t move. So exhausted he can’t open his eyes. Everything aches. His muscles are screaming at him and he tries to get out of bed but ends up rolling over and falling off. He has to shimmy to get his sweatpants on because his forearms don’t want to pull and then while he shoves on a hoodie, every inch of his spine cracks. In fact, all of his joints crack. How can he lift a finger? It’s that kind of exhaustion. But it’s not just physical. Yixing remembers thinking ‘ _why the fuck am I doing this?_ ’ almost daily.  
  
But then he would go to class. He would warm up, stretch and suddenly he’s moving again and he’s in love. He can’t stop, not when his throat is killing him and his lips are cracked. He’s tired. He’s so tired. All of his movements are sleepy and he thinks he’s running from class to class but his movements are rather sluggish. Is this the third shot of espresso this morning?  
  
Hunger. In the morning, being too tired to make or find breakfast. Skipping lunch to practice in rarely empty rooms and studios. Packing snacks but forgetting them by breaks because he’s passed out on the ground, boneless, and so drenched in sweat that he’s not sure there’s any more water in his body. Getting up to go rummage through his back? Impossible. He gets back to the dorms too late to ever make food for himself. Sometimes he picks up takeout on his way home but for the most part he doesn’t eat meals so much as forces food down his throat whenever he can – whenever he remembers.  
  
Loneliness. Reinforced by bouts of boredom. Between classes and the dorm, there’s little else he does. Sometimes, when insomnia strikes late at night and he’s lying awake in bed, he thinks about talking to the others. He wonders if they’re awake, and if they’d listen to him talk about something, anything at all. But that’s a joke. No one’s here for anyone else. No one would care. Word would go around about him being weak and the bullying would just increase. Calling his family always brings tears to his eyes, and he never has anything productive to say. Wait for me, I don’t know if I’ll ever get anywhere but please wait. I miss you. They’d probably tell him to return home. He fists the sheets and rolls over, faces the wall and pretends that he’s not crying. He’s not. He’s weeping.  
  
These feelings aren’t coupled with memories. He doesn’t remember what it feels like anymore. So it’s a closed book, and he tries his best not to reflect on those experiences. No one talks about those times, unless it’s a specific memory that brings smiles or laughter.  
  
It’s also a period in his life that he never wants to forget.  
  
Maybe high school and college are the best years of others’ lives. Normal people. But the trainee days were like that for all of them too. Growing up with friends, maturing, finding who they are and discovering a worldview. There was childishness to them, carelessness, a significant lack of reputation to uphold or responsibilities to fulfill. It was a sense of being unstoppable that comes with being young. Feeling reckless and capable of anything at all. Not being afraid. Not having regrets. They weren’t wary of being chased or watched. They lived freely, as best as they could, as much as they could. And Yixing misses that. He really misses that.  
  
Groups of them would go out for drinks whenever they had free time. Whenever the Chinese trainees got together, he always felt more comfortable, understanding his surroundings. They’d speak in Mandarin usually, and sometimes they’d use dialect or the Cantonese speakers would rebel. But that sense of familiarity never left. These were the people closest to him, the only ones who knew what he was going through. Even if they had all had different contexts and aspirations, their commonalities outweighed their differences.  
  
It’s a running joke in his family that all the men can’t hold their alcohol and all the women drink like alcoholics. He’s never met an exception thus far. He uses this as an excuse to have a beer or two and fills up on soft drinks for the rest of the night as the others get wasted. Getting buzzed is nice but he likes to maintain his sobriety in front of others. He thinks that the vulnerability when drunk isn’t something he can afford. That weakened state; it’s not something he can easily give to others, who don’t always have his best interests in mind. However, he’s usually stuck trying to safely shepherd everyone back home.  
  
This was how they forgot the every day feelings.  
  
There’s a particular memory he has of Lu Han that he doesn’t ever bring up. For some reason their voice coach had tore a strip off him that day. The reason escapes Yixing now but it was a scolding that left Lu Han standing in tears. What he recalls clearly is Lu Han getting absolutely plastered to the point that he couldn’t stand.  
  
He remembers manipulating him onto his back to piggy back him to a taxi. As soon as Yixing opened the car door when they had gotten to the dorm, Lu Han had proceeded to puke everywhere. He remembers wiping vomit off of Lu Han’s face with his bare hands for lack of anything else to use. He remembers draping him over the side of the bathtub to wash his hair and then dragging him into bed after stripping him down to his boxers. He remembers fumbling for a cloth to give him a sponge bath and leaving a bun and Advil for the morning. He doesn’t remember how he got back to his own dorm and he tries not to remember being yelled at for being late the next day.  
  
Lu Han steps forward to take the blame and Yixing learns true friendship.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
One of the first things that Yixing ever learned about Lu Han, other than the fact that he’s bloody gorgeous, is that he’s a football fan. It happens when Yixing is looking for a friend in Lu Han’s dorm. Lu Han lets him in wearing nothing but a Manchester United jersey with Ronaldo emblazoned on the back and a pair of boxers. Yixing looks at him blankly when he opens the door.  
  
“Oh. Zhang Yixing right? Come in.”  
  
Yixing has always thought that Lu Han’s voice rather matches his face.  
  
Lu Han had headed off to take the shower he was getting ready for and Yixing watches him pad off, bare feet stuffed into a pair of slippers that were at least two sizes too large. He had stood awkwardly in the corner for a good fifteen to twenty minutes when Lu Han stepped out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel. Their eyes met and Lu Han’s squinted.  
  
“You’re still here?” He had asked and then, without waiting for an answer, opened the door to the bedroom.  
  
Yixing waited patiently for Lu Han’s return.  
  
“Eh, looks like they’ve all gone out. You’re welcome to stay though.”  
  
So Yixing had stayed, and they had sat awkwardly on Lu Han’s tiny bed and chatted aimlessly in Chinese. It was rather boring conversation, if Yixing remembers correctly, and there were extended moments of silence whenever Lu Han asked a question and Yixing provided one word responses. It was during one of these lulls that Yixing sensed he had better try and be a better conversation partner lest Lu Han got offended.  
  
“Uh, your outfit…” Yixing had begun.  
  
Lu Han had looked down and scrunched his nose.  
  
“Oh, right. I guess I should put on some pants.”  
  
“Wait, no, I mean, uh, well, you can put on pants, but I was wondering about the jersey.”  
  
Lu Han had laughed at him then and asked if Yixing watched football too. His entire face seemed to dim a little when Yixing shook his head. Flustered, Yixing had asked him to tell him about his favorite team and favorite player anyway. Lu Han did. He pulled on pants and talked sat back down on the bed and talked and kept talking and continued talking until Yixing had become overwhelmed. The statistics about Cristiano Ronaldo’s penalty kicks and record number of caps (whatever those were) completely flew over his head. He was just about tuning out when Lu Han suddenly stopped and Yixing started a little.  
  
“Sorry,” Lu Han had said sheepishly, “I’ve talked for too long haven’t I?” and squishes his face into an adorable wry smile.  
  
“No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I zone out a lot,” Yixing had rushed.  
  
After that, Yixing ended up in Lu Han’s dorm rather often, looking for Lu Han rather than anyone else. They would sit, cramped, on a bed and talk about things. Lu Han would make fun of his habit of going on a tangent and forgetting his original point. Yixing would make fun of the amount of TVXQ songs on Lu Han’s iPod.  
  
Sometimes, they would go to Yixing’s dorm instead. Sometimes, Yixing told Lu Han about his family. He’d describe his 外婆’s habit of watching water boil to make sure that it was truly sterilized for drinking while gesticulating wildly and talk about his 爷爷’s record of watching a particular news broadcast without fail for the past three and a half years. Sometimes, Lu Han told Yixing about his friends back when he was still in China, who took him out for drinks and treated beer as a warm up, and felt that a few shots of hard liqueur were easily handled.  
  
Sometimes they wouldn’t talk. They would sit on the bed, side by side, an ear bud each, and share their recent musical discoveries with each other. Sometimes they would simply sit, each holding a paper cup filled with watery tea. This was an easy friendship.  
  
Nothing has changed.  
  
  
  
  
  
The period of time immediately before debut is an absolute blur to Yixing. There was so much stuff to do, so much that was new, and an overwhelming sense of alienation that makes that period of time happen in double time in his mind.  
  
There are brief flashes, like camera lights, when he can remember scenes. They play like snapshots in his memories, no longer than a moment. They often exist without him having any idea what happened right before or right after. It’s a weird rushed feeling but one that some of the others seem to recognize too. Once in a while, when he gets time to check Baidu, he looks at Youku videos of the first teasers. His memory of filming those teasers is a complete blank. He barely remembers learning the choreography, even though his body and muscle memory seem to know every move.  
  
Their hairstyle changes always strike him as well. Most days, he looks in the mirror and having momentarily forgotten his hair color, is quite shocked by what he sees. In the teasers, he always has to take a second look at himself and try to remember when he looked that way. It’s interesting seeing the others too, with styles and colors that are completely different from the present time. They may still be the same people, but that doesn’t make it any weirder to see someone go from black to blond to auburn.  
  
But there’s something other than the hair that alarms him. It’s the fact that they look well rested. He thinks that even with stage makeup, pictures of him nowadays can’t hide away eye bags and the sunken look of someone who hasn’t felt rested in months. He can’t remember the feeling of not being stressed out.  
  
So it’s not perhaps until the showcase that he remembers things clearly. If his mind were a video being played, everything from about November of 2011 to April of 2012 is being fast-forwarded. Someone hits the play button right in the middle of their showcase in China, the precise moment when the fans start chanting either KaiLu or LuKai. It’s a weird moment to be conscious of.  
  
It’s also a rather humorous point in their careers.  
  
Yixing thinks to himself, “安排跟不上现实,” _Planning can never keep up with reality_.  
  
S.M. had a lot of plans for EXO. Big plans. Thought out concepts that were contrived but complete. But then they didn’t get the positive feedback or popular support, and suddenly the plans to win awards and be the new big thing were lost. There were a lot of things that didn’t go according to plan. Their teasers didn’t draw nearly as much attention from the public as had been expected. A Chinese fandom sprung up but the Korean market had become saturated with talented rookies. EXO wasn’t really ready. The high expectations had to be adjusted after the first few weeks of promotions. There was no immediate comeback.  
  
They had also planned as a company for their visuals to provide the fanservice. They pushed for Luhan and Kai whether or not Lu Han and Kim Jongin wanted it. But Jongin didn’t seem to mind the attention and Lu Han was simply amused by it all. They went along with it, but only some Chinese fans bought it.  
  
Suddenly, SeLu was everywhere and Sehun was rapidly thrust into the mix. Yixing remembers this with clarity, being startled by an unfamiliar fanchant one day and almost losing his balance during a spin on stage.  
  
But they’re all human. And humans are capable of adapting. So their concept might have some changes and they might spend extra time in practice rooms. They might get an actual wardrobe made out of fabric rather than sequins. Maybe they won’t have to be covered in skull print. Is it too much to ask for classy suits like Super Junior?  
  
There have been a lot of misses in S.M.’s history, simply forgotten as a result of their popular stars. He thinks of Zhang Liyin, whose talent never got recognized, and The Grace who split up to do their own thing. But then Yixing thinks that it took SHINee a while to gain their fanbase, and notes that before being a well liked, there was a time when Cho Kyuhyun was the target of the Only12 campaign. It’s a tossup.  
  
And Lu Han doesn’t really care whom his attention should be directed towards. In fact, he probably has enough charm in him to captain a ship with most of the members. He’s a convincing actor. With that pretty face, Yixing wonders why he didn’t venture out to careers other than becoming a singer.  
  
Somehow, by debuting, they all had become so acutely aware of the public eye that being flexible and improvising became second nature. They weren’t reality television; rather, they were a show. Maybe parts of their lives were carefully scripted but in the end, the most important thing was that everything was made up. They are show people, who are meant for the fans. They themselves are not important, so much as the image they create. They are sculpted and shaped and artificial.  
  
They’re entertainers. Sometimes Yixing has to remind himself of this fact, or else he forgets himself. They’re entertainers, their business is entertainment and their purpose is to be entertaining. The entertainment industry is a fickle thing.  
  
Anything can change.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The best and worst thing about life is its unpredictable nature.  
  
It was his lucky day.  
  
Yixing had forgotten to charge his mp3 player the night before and was now paying for it by having to listen to the annoying tinkle China Southern Airlines had decided was appropriate background music. There was a flight attendant passing out copies of the China Daily but had forgotten their row. Yixing was just about to get up and ask for one when the pilot began making an announcement. Through the crackle, they were informed that there would be a delay as a result of a mechanical problem. Yixing wanted to groan.  
  
He waved down a flight attendant who told him they’d be right back and never came back. So he sat in between a studiously reading Wu Yifan and a sleeping Lu Han who had covered up the window with his head. His legs were cramped and his shoulders aching. He sat, blankly looking ahead at the seat in front of him and the top of Huang Zitao’s head. He must have dozed off because the next moment he was conscious of was the pilot telling them all that their previous delay meant that there was no scheduled runway space for them. Yixing did groan at that.  
  
Yifan glanced at him. He took off his glasses and rubbed at his face, muffling the sound of his words, “You should get some rest.”  
  
“What?” Yixing asked.  
  
“We’re hours behind schedule, you better sleep now before we have to rush through all the activities. It’s going to be a long day.”  
  
“Yeah,” Yixing had said in agreement, but he didn’t close his eyes.  
  
When he made no sign of attempting sleep whatsoever, Yifan rolled his eyes and closed his book on his thumb finger before poking Yixing in the shoulder with the index finger on his other hand. Yixing pointedly ignored this.  
  
Yifan furrowed his eyebrows and poked Yixing in the side, harder this time. At this, Yixing flinched reflexively and ended up knocking his funny bone against the armrest.  
  
Yixing made a noise and Yifan looked at him again, snickering.  
  
“What?” Yifan asked pointedly.  
  
“What?” Yixing glared. “Stand up, I have to pee.”  
  
“Hold on, let me find a bookmark.” Yifan rummaged for a bookmark. Finding none, he ripped off a strip of paper and slipped it in the book. He set it aside and was making to get up when an announcement was made.  
  
“Ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate your patience. Our plane is now ready for takeoff. Please remain seated, fasten your seatbelts, return your seats to the upright position, stow away your trays, and turn off any electronic devices.”  
  
“You’re kidding me.”  
  
“Just hold it.”  
  
“Go away.”  
  
Yixing thought it must be his lucky day.  
  
By the time they had finished taxiing, got in the air, and the seatbelt sign had been turned off, Yixing was pretty sure he was going to piss his pants. Yifan took his time unbuckling himself and unfolding his goddamned long limbs so Yixing could get out. Buy the time he got to the back, the words “Lavatory – Occupied” glared at him in red. He sighed and hopped from foot to foot as he waited for someone to finish.  
  
The sound of the toilet flushing was like music to his ears but also sent a signal to his bladder and he cursed in his head as whoever it was took their sweet time washing their hands. Zitao came out and looked ecstatic to see Yixing.  
  
“Ge! I was just going to ask, could we switch seats? I want to sit beside dui zhang and go over –“  
  
“Can we talk about this later, emergency situation!” Yixing had shrieked at him and snapped the door closed behind him.  
  
It turned out that Yifan moved up to sit beside their manager to go over logistics as a result of being late, so Zitao slipped into Yifan’s previous seat and picked up his book to read as well. He was not interested in talking to Yixing. So Yixing continued to sit, sick with boredom, and no to all the flight attendants who asked him, “Would you like something to drink?”  
  
Zitao accepted his cup of water and spilled it after Yixing nudged him.  
  
“What about Lu Han ge?”  
  
“Why are you asking me?” Zitao said, annoyed, as he wiped water off his hand.  
  
Yixing considered things for a moment. Lu Han was likely to wake up with his hair a mess and pressed to the side of his face. He hadn’t slept well last night, and he wasn’t going to get the comfortable rest that he needed. He would be cranky and self-conscious of the fact that he looked tired and sloppy.  
  
“Coffee, two creams, no sugar.”  
  
The flight attendant handed him a Styrofoam cup and a packet of cream. Yixing set it down on the tray in front of Lu Han.  
  
“Aren’t you going to mix it for him too?” Zitao asked.  
  
“No, I have to estimate his mood for when he wakes up. Sometimes it’s two creams, or one, or one and a half, or non at all.”  
  
Zitao looked at him, “And…you can tell what he’s going to want?”  
  
“I can have a better guess closer to the time he wakes up.”  
  
“O…kay…”  
  
Yixing waited until what he thought would probably be ten minutes before they descend to peer at Lu Han’s face. Lu Han’s mouth was open.  
  
“Hm…I’m thinking half a cream.”  
  
“Half?”  
  
“Half.”  
  
Zitao raised an eyebrow and watched Yixing carefully pour out half a container of cream into the cup. Yixing handed the cup to Zitao to stir, much to Zitao’s protest, before carefully patting Lu Han’s hand to wake him up.  
  
“What are you doing?” Zitao asked, not looking up from the stir stick.  
  
“He hates being shaken awake.”  
  
Lu Han came to after about five minutes, which is precisely what Yixing had estimated. Yixing plucked the cup out of Zitao’s hand and gave it to Lu Han.  
  
“Shitty airplane coffee in a Styrofoam cup, mm, how did you know exactly what I wanted, Yixing?”  
  
Zitao huffed something that sounds like the word bitch under his breath. Yixing didn’t say anything and let out a breath when Lu Han finished and put the cup down. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  
  
“Really Yixing, half a cream? Today was definitely a quarter cream day.”  
  
“Sorry,” Yixing squeaked, as Zitao’s jaw dropped.  
  
“A quarter of a cream, are you fucking serious –“  
  
Yixing slapped Zitao’s thigh quickly and supplied, “I have Pocky in my bag?”  
  
Lu Han looked appeased and Zitao looked even more affronted.  
  
“You never share snacks! Whipped! 100% completely and totally whipped! Zhang Yixing you are gone! Are you married or something?”  
  
“No, I just care!”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Or at least, he tries to. The difference in time between China and Korea is only one hour, but the time difference between Seoul and Madrid is 8 hours. Yixing is woken up at four in the morning one day by Lu Han and Jongin huddled in front of a laptop. The words El Clasico mean nothing to Yixing, but are divinity to football fans.  
  
He doesn’t fall asleep, listening to statistics and names being thrown around, listening to hushed cheers and angry screams. Whoever Casillas is, according to the two of them, he’s the only reason Real Madrid was able to tie Barcelona.  
  
“This is ridiculous, why do they have so many good midfielders? You’d think Mou would invest in some defense or figure something out with their forwards. They just aren’t getting goals, it’s ridiculous, aren’t they like fifth in La Liga or something?” Jongin says.  
  
“Can we not talk about their strikers?” Lu Han complains.  
  
“Oooh right, sore spot,” Jongin snickers. “Still bitter?”  
  
“Shut up, let’s see if we can find a video of Messi’s goal yet.”  
  
“Now there’s a striker who can score,” Jongin says appreciatively.  
  
“Oh my God, it’s not like he’s helping Madrid right now so no big loss –“  
  
“Come on you can say his name,” Jongin teases.  
  
Lu Han grinds his teeth. “Cristiano Ronaldo.”  
  
“That’s right and I’d say behind Messi he’s doing pretty well when he’s not faking injuries. So I guess United really lost out there, huh?”  
  
“Fernando. Torres.” Lu Han says pointedly. “How many games has it been since he’s last scored again?”  
  
Jongin just glares.  
  
In the morning, Lu Han is three times as hard to wake up as usual. He asks about the old Ronaldo jersey at breakfast.  
  
“You never wear it anymore,”  
  
“Oh. Yeah. Let’s not talk about it.”  
  
Yixing looks down, hurt.  
  
“Sorry, it’s just. Well he left Manchester United for Real Madrid despite saying he wouldn’t leave and then there was just the issue of money and he never really flowered until he got to Madrid and he’s an absolute traitor, I just – Cristiano Ronaldo? I hate him. Sorry. I’m ranting,” Lu Han says rapidly.  
  
Yixing giggles at him and Lu Han smiles and looks down.  
  
“I’m wearing pants today.”  
  
“You remember that?”  
  
“Well, I don’t know why we cared back then, I mean, thinking about it now, we’ve all seen each other naked in the dressing room. I really wish you liked football.”  
  
Yixing has a similar wish, if only to better understand Lu Han’s staunch loyalty to teams and his antics as a fan, being awake at all hours and becoming so emotionally involved in a sport.  
  
“Not for lack of trying, considering that a quarter of our band are fans,” Yixing retorts.  
  
“Three of us? Wait, you can’t count Minseok, he plays well but he’s a fan of a different team every single year!” Lu Han complains.  
  
“Well, I’m a fan of haw flakes all the time…” Yixing says.  
  
They end up covering wearing facemasks and escaping to the store in the lobby of their hotel to stock up on snacks. Yixing grabs a bag each of sweet potato chips and banana chips, while Lu Han takes two boxes of strawberry wafers. They add a bag of haw candies in to the mix at the end.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The trip back to Changsha is the best reward he’s ever received. It’s been over a year since he’s seen the streets, and even then, there are new things around. His parents pick him up from Huang Hua airport and his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins all join them for dinner. There’s a sense of belonging he has with his family, even when he doesn’t see them for long periods of time.  
  
His mother wants to take him shopping the next day, but he would rather sit at home with them and talk about their lives. It feels like all of them already know every moment he goes through, since he’s in the public eye. Not all of them keep track, but some family member or another must fill them in. It feels weird to have everyone in a room know you while you don’t really know anyone else. They’ve all changed, and Yixing’s greatest regret is that he wasn’t able to change with them.  
  
Everyone is eager to force food on him when they eat, and he eats happily and heartily, despite knowing that he’ll have to cut back on food over the next week to get back to his previous weight and size. Eating in Changsha isn’t really different in that he’s consuming an abnormal amount of snacks, but is completely different in that the food he’s eating is all local specialties. He relishes every moment. The smell of stinky tofu on the street, the taste of real dry spiciness in dishes, and the sounds of Changsha dialect welcome him back.  
  
If someone asked Yixing if going to China felt more like going home or to Korea, his answer would be China without question. They talked about returning to Korea, about going back to Korea after schedules, they planned and trained and recorded and rehearsed and functioned in Korea. But Seoul, to Zhang Yixing, was more of a homing station than a home. Home was Changsha; home was his mother’s cooking and his father chewing on 槟榔 while smoking cigarettes.  
  
“You’re doing well,” his mother tells him in the car from the airport back to their eleventh floor condo.  
  
“We’re proud of you,” his father says quietly to him at dinner.  
  
“Be careful. Live happily.” They chorus on the way to the airport again.  
  
“Take care of your health. I’ll call.” He replies before he goes through customs.  
  
Yixing, smiles as he waves and thinks there’s something funny about it all. His parents cried more when he returned home to them than when he flew off to Korea again. It’s reasonable in that, like him, in their hearts they know what he also has come to realize. No matter, what he’ll always be their son, and that’s why he’ll always visit home.  
  
His mother packs him packets of traditional herbal medicine and a jar of hot sauce in a Tupperware container wrapped in a towel. Yixing doesn’t find any of it until two weeks later, when he has a chance to organize his stuff. It’s convenient because Lu Han’s been sniffling for a day or two and before a concert there’s absolutely no way he can have a cold and sing live.  
  
He finds a mug in the kitchen and plugs in a kettle. Emptying the medicine into the mug, he waits for the water to boil before pouring it into the mug. He finds a small spoon to stir well and waits for it to cool before delivering it to Lu Han, who’s curled up in blankets in bed.  
  
“I was wondering where you had gone off to. You weren’t here when I woke up.”  
  
“Here,” Yixing says simply, and puts the mug into Lu Han’s hands.  
  
“[感冒退热冲剂](http://www.activeherb.com/ganmaotuire/)? How bitter is it?” Lu Han asks, staring at the liquid.  
  
Yixing shrugs. “You know how it is,” he says and pulls out a container of [王老吉](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wong_Lo_Kat) lozenges.  
  
“You’re a lifesaver,” Lu Han croaks.  
  
“I have Watermelon Frost candies too.”  
  
Lu Han beams at him.  
  
Yixing makes the medicine for him three times a day for the next two days and feeds Lu Han congee and chicken soup. He adds zinc tablets and lemon ginger tea and keeps him sleeping whenever they’re not required to do anything, including times when they’re waiting or taking breaks.  
  
Lu Han’s throat is largely better by the time they’re performing What is Love, and it’s largely due to Yixing’s sheer willpower.  
  
Yixing’s not entirely sure how to feel several months later when he overhears Lu Han on the phone.  
  
“Sehun-ah? … Yeah, tomorrow? … Cool. How have you been?”  
  
It’s a private conversation and Yixing should leave, but his feet don’t take him anywhere. He stands, breathing as quietly as he can, looking at Lu Han’s back.  
  
“That’s good. Things have been okay here. Sehun-ah? Are you sick? ... No, I’m not sick, he says while coughing. … I’ll bring over some of the Chinese medicine Yixing’s mom gave him when I come over tomorrow then. That stuff tastes awful but it really works. I’m sure Xingxing won’t mind.”  
  
Yixing’s heart clenches and he wants to say he minds, he minds because they were supposed to hang out tomorrow but he can’t logically or with good conscience let Oh Sehun stay ill. Instead of saying anything, he walks by their room to find Minseok in the kitchen.  
  
“Share,” he demands, not bothering to look at whatever Minseok is making to eat.  
  
Minseok looks ready to berate him, but then decides against it when he notices Yixing with his head on the dining table, looking lifeless. He pushes a bowl of noodles over and hands him a pair of chopsticks without asking any questions.  
  
“I eat,” Yixing says to his bowl of noodles a few moments later, “because I’m sad.”  
  
Minseok nods once and puts his chopsticks down.  
  
“But I’m sad,” he says, poking his own cheek, “because I eat. Do you feel me?”  
  
Minseok nods vigorously and picks up his chopsticks to give Yixing a piece of kimchi. Yixing looks at him sadly. They eat in silence after that, with a quiet understanding achieved between them.  
  
  
  
  
  
Christmas in China feels like another Valentine’s Day to Yixing. It’s couples exchanging presents, taking pictures, going shopping, eating dinner together, and you can’t go anywhere without someone asking you if it’s a date. Lu Han and Yixing start out shopping with Yifan and Zitao but they end up splitting when Zitao drags Yifan to look at earrings with him.  
  
This is not altogether unexpected and Yixing reserves only a table for two at dinner, which automatically makes everyone involved think it’s a date. He tells the maître that it’s not at least a dozen times, but they still end up with a rose in a vase in the middle of the table. At least the heart decorations are removed.  
  
“Thanks,” Lu Han says when they’re finished, refilling each other’s cups with 铁观音.  
  
“For what?” Yixing asks.  
  
“Well, Christmas is a family time right? Anyway, you’ve kept me company, so thanks for that.”  
  
There’s an implication there about Yixing being Lu Han’s family that he tries not to focus on. This is as close as Lu Han will get to revealing that he’s just as lonely as anyone else.  
  
One day years from now, Lu Han will find someone to spend time with so that he never feels lonely. Maybe a Korean girl in the industry. Maybe they’ll settle down in Korea and have kids, more than one. They’ll have beautiful offspring because they’re both pretty.  
  
Somewhere in Hunan, there’s a 辣妹子 waiting to be Zhang Yixing’s bride. Her parents might have qualms about her marrying an entertainer at first, but they’ll be happy together and live a life where Yixing can reflect and reflect but feel as if nothing’s real, not even the baby they have together.  
  
Serenity is an abstract feeling to him and he’s not sure he’ll ever achieve it. Yet, friendship isn’t something tangible either. It’s two people out of seven million meeting and being. As much as Lu Han needs Zhang Yixing, Zhang Yixing also needs Lu Han. Like brothers, they’ll always come home to each other.  
---  
  
.  
-etc.

**Author's Note:**

> -Chinese words include links or hovers  
> -El Clasico is the name given to Real Madrid/Barcelona matches. I hate MUTD and I am a bitter Özil fan.  
> -Written while listening to [翁航融 and 滕子琪's 我再也不要对你那么好](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_XOz1dGzXM)


End file.
